Hot Air Balloon - Baby shower

One of my very good friends enlisted my help and the power of Pinterest to through an amazing shower for a bouncing baby boy.

We started out by agreeing that bottles, blocks and trucks have been done to death.  After scouring pinterest for shower ideas we had both pinned this little guy:

 

After scanning the directions we dove head first into this little project with a mandatory trip to Michaels.  Of course I had to open my big mouth with "you know what would look really cute?  A big one and a little one side by side"

 

Should have read the directions more closely.  Alas hindsight is 50/50.

 

It took me a couple tries, a few curse words under my breath, the engineering of my husband and a trusty measuring tape but did these come out cute or what??

 

With 6 of us on the decorating committee we were able to knock them out in about a week.

All packed away nice and cozy

Making a debut the day of the shower

To add a little more whimsy we hung hot air balloons and clouds from the trees

 

We ordered our banner here on Etsy, the shop owner was amazing and totally worked with me on the design and how we wanted to feel of the shower.  We also got matching balloon cupcake toppers pictured below.

 

My friend Joi Lawler over at Cake Mix created our lovely lemon cake based on this design; as well as the balloon and cloud sugar cookies.

 

Even if your having a boy, there's nothing like adding a little sparkle.

Down to the very last dreamy cloud detail, I'm pretty sure this shower was a hit!

 

June 2013

I'm so behind and my OCD won't let me blog out of order!  I have half a mind to just scrap these missed months posts but I don't want to forget these little moments so I'll try to blow through these to get to the meaty stuff. 

June 8

Alyssa's grad party

Remember in mays post the madness that was my desk?  That was the creation of little Missy's graduation gift of a years worth of photos and mementos her mama cleverly snuck away.  I was glad to provide my artistic abilities.

June 14

Book club

Ms. Lindsay did an amazing job with our china themed party.  She choose the book Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.  The details in the book were so intricate you could picture everything.  It was so emotional and raw, incredible page turner, I had to get the second book because I had to know what was going to happen next!

As always we do what we do best eat, talk, kiss babies, eat, talk and eat some more!

June 16

The entire month of May my sister and her hubby were touring Europe. (Yes jealous!)

We had them over for Sunday dinner, I made my first ham and tried my hand at grandma's potato salad.  I did pretty darn good too.  My lovely sister brought me these delightful goodies, soap from Paris, bowls from Italy bracelets from Spain.  All in my favorite color, aqua!  It looked so pretty like this I left it to display in my book shelf.  

June  22-23

Yearly I put on a craft day which has affectionately become known as CYBO (craft your brains out) for 10 delirious hours of crafting food and games.  I normally to do it at a local high school in a big room but my connection retired so we were on the hunt for a new location.  Only problem is we were so used to the nice accommodations and being free is a big plus!  Another change this year was that I now have a house to host in, so I took the challenge of fitting 15 crafters between 3 rooms. 

I think these girls look pretty happy.

Getting Knitty with it...

Na na na na na nana (in my best Will Smith voice)

I started a knitting club and this is why I was rushing to pull my house in some kind of decent order.

Saturday night had some of my girls over , my homies, BFF's, comadres, sisters, friends...to get their yarn on.  Everyone got a cute little owl bag to carry their projects, we came out with 6 new knitters and 2 new crocheters.  We had a ton of fun, wine and laughter.

The only down side for me is that I went WAY off the paleo wagon.  So far off that I stayed off all Sunday and Monday, bearly seeing the wagon wheels fade into the sunset haha.  I made enchiladas and beans, there was a abundance of appetizers and dessert!  Shamefully I put away the remaining pieces of tira misu last night.  I was hungry! So now we've rolled around to Tuesday and I'm having all these cravings for things I know I shouldnt be having.  Hubby will be leaving super early tomorrow for Arizona through Friday.  I gotta take those days to reset and get back on track.  Next Friday I'm hosting book club!  So now starts the search for some Paleo friendly munchies. 

Lean Mean 2013

So I didn't quite make the 13lb benchmark by January.  I missed the last 3 weigh ins.  According to my scale I was up and down over the 3 weeks; when I went for my official weigh in yesterday I was down .2 lbs.  At least its not a gain and I can still maintain my all loss book.  I've been on "break" making brownies and Mexican food (Why not go for bust since I wasn't counting anyway) but now its time to get back on the horse.

I've kept my promise to myself and I joined the community center gym.  I also went ahead and purchased Active Link to track my soon to be activity points.  I'm still trying to figure out how to use it but I'm excited about the tool and hoping it will give me more incentive.

My team leader was nice in saying "don't worry about the past, that's last years weight." 
Very true, I'm ready for the boost.  I'd love to say I'm going to lose 2 lbs a week and be at my goal for next year but realistically I'm going to put it out there to shoot for a 1lb a week knowing there will be ups and downs.  That will put me at a hopeful loss of 50 lbs!

So here's some other goings on for start of 2013.
As mentioned before we are moving!  In 5 weeks and counting...Officially February 16.  This has caused me some major stress in the past month but now things are settling down.  Hubby officially got a new job.  As of today his start date is January 21, but he's trying to get it bumped up to the 14th.  Seeing they want him on a conference call that day, I think it's fair the payroll clock starts then.  He'll be flying to Canada on the 21st and then to Atlanta to meet his new counter part on the 31st.

There was a lot of back and forth on the flight schedule but I'm happy to say He'll be able to go to the first fertility apt we have scheduled for January 24. 

Now I've read the starter packet back and forth and still have no clue what we're going to discuss in that first appointment.  But what I did find out is that we have to meet with a financial planner before we start any kind of treatment plan.  I thought this was kind of funny because don't you need to know what your planning to do before you know how much its going to cost?

The house we are moving into, I believe was built in the 70's.  Now my parents did some remodeling during the 20 years we lived there, but in the past 8 years the place has been screaming for a face lift.  At bare minimum we need to paint and carpet the place.  Gold, green and burgundy just AREN'T my colors!  There is also a leak in the master bath the feeds into a wall that will need to be taken care of ASAP so I've spent WAY more time in hardware stores than I'd ever imagine.  Why do I bring all this up?  A dirty little word called Finance, it's looming over my head. We don't have the up front cash to fix the house and I refuse to borrow it from the bank of Mom, so we'll have to finance that on top of what I'd already figured we'd have to finance for the medical stuff.

Yes there are a lot of goings on in my head.  On the funner side,  I have my annual scrapper bowl coming up February 9 and I'm hosting book club in March.  I've also added a knitting circle to my craft menagerie.  Sprinkle in a few photo shoots and we've got a full spring line up.

I just want to say I appreciate all my "cheer-readers" out there.  It mean's alot that you keep up with my silly stories and keep me encouraged to keep on my way.

Shutter Bug

Hubby recently bought me the most amazing present EVER a Cannon D60 camera.  I've been wanting one for so long! I love photography and scrapbooking, it's a vicious cycle and they feed each other!  I took my new toy out for a spin this Sunday on an impromtu outing with a friend of mine and her grandchildren.

This little cutie is Ava.

 Here comes big sister Lily!

 Papa and Gramma

  Taking a stroll down Birch Street

These are just a few of my favorite shots.  I've been mulling over the idea of starting a business photographing family outings and special occasions like first trip to Disneyland. Nothing posed just capturing the moments and emotions.  Now I finally have the camera to do it.

Hobbies and Jalepano's

I don't have anything super wonderful to report, but I feel like writing so it's time for show and tell.

Since its been cold and raining, the general feeling is to be inside nice and cozy.  So here are a few of my current projects. 

I started a mini book that I had intended to give as a baby shower gift.  That didn't happen and now the baby's heading into 4 months lol.  But I had all the stuff and so I decided to go ahead and finish it, the up side is I can now add pictures instead of giving it to my friend blank!

Next on my list of cozy projects is knitting.  One day while walking through Michael's I noticed this scrumptious sample of yarn, Loops & Threads Bunny Tail (pom pom).  I had to have it.  It looked really hard to work with, so I did my research and found some patterns to use.  Last November one of my besties and fellow knitter came over and we watched multiple you tube videos to figure out how to cast on these little monsters.   Once we got it down the rest was easy peasy.  The trick is you knit one stitch between the balls. The funny story about this blanket is that it called for 70 stitches.  I decided I wanted it a little bigger so I cast on 80 stitches.  Then I had my sister look at it and she said might as well make it a even hundred.  Well NOW the blanket is about 6 feet in length.  What started to be a lap blanket will now be a couch blanket for me and my hunny.   Since I usually scrap during the summer (and we've had a unseasonably warm winter) this project got pushed in the closet and was recently resurrected.  I'll be sure to post a picture when its done.  At the rate I'm knitting should be some time in January.

Last but not least I joined a book club.  This past month I read "The Lost Wife".  It was REALLY good so much I wish I had more book to read.  Tonight is the first meeting I'll be attending and the dinner theme is Gourmet Grilled Cheese, Soups and Champagne.   I'm in trouble lol.  I made jalapeno poppers pictured below.  Not too bad, I used the reduced fat crescent roll dough and re cut the sheet into 32 squares.  With a tsp of cream cheese and some chopped jale's, they come out to 1 point each.   I also made some with mini chocolate chips and brown sugar, also 1 point each.

Down side, I had a off site meeting for work today and they provided lunch.  The lunch in itself wasn't bad, 7 pts.  But I was STARVING and ended up eating the 12 point cookie that came in the lunch box.  I'm contemplating taking my own dinner to book club tonight so I don't totally botch this week.  We'll see what the scale says on Monday!